When I say it would divide the playerbase, I mean there would be a segment playing in normal and a segment playing in elite, and they could never mix. If the elite damage and content were more restricted (I think of it as a soft cap... theoretically you would be able to reach absurd damage levels, but diminishing returns would make it essentially impossible), then all types of players could play together (and PvP might actually work to some extent).
First up, pvp is its own animal that will NEVER work how people are expecting it to by the sheer nature of how it functions in STO. In keeping to the core philosophy of STO it's not possible to make it into what people want.
People can already play together now with the system we currently have regardless of the level of power they're at. However this entire thread has been about certain people not liking that people over a certain DPS threshold can come into certain bits of content and ruin it for other people as they've outright said or hinted at. So if you want all types of players to be able to do content together then this already exists and there is no issue. Yet you've made the statement before you think there is too much DPS. So I have to question, if you want all people to be able to play together, then how can you justify excluding those with higher DPS from the equation? Logically when you say all people that must include them as well. If not then you aren't really wanting all people to be able to play together, only certain groups which divides the playerbase.
In arguing for a soft cap or any kind of DPS cap, you're placing an artificial ceiling that removes any motivation for people to improve their ships and builds. You must then decide how much DPS you think should be the max. Is it 1m DPS, is it 500k, 250k, or what number are we talking? Let's say you capped DPS at 200k, you're still going to have to deal with those 200k people playing on advanced and normal from time to time. You're not eliminating what you say is a problem, you're just punishing people for investing in their builds.
I also tend to agree with Val in his observations of your issues with the Tzenkethi. Enemies getting stronger as players get stronger has been the standard of MMOs since their existence. Yet for me personally it sounds like in part that you're arguing an oxymoronic and contradictory position.
On one hand you say you want all types of people to be able to play together, yet are arguing for a DPS cap and restrictions on so called elite damage. You say you don't want to divide the playerbase yet have argued before that so called high DPS players are ruining things for others and are arguing for changes. I also agree with Val on one other thing, people playing normal are going to play normal no matter what, and people playing elite will keep playing elite. People will keep playing their chosen level no matter what. That's not going to suddenly change. Also if a normal mode player wants to step into elite and succeed, then they need to put in the work to get there. Nothing is free nor should it be. I have to seriously ask at this point, if you want all people to be able to play together as you've hinted at, how can you argue for some kind of DPS cap or similar? You say you want people to play together, which they can do now, yet argue for restrictions. From where I'm sitting it sounds like you don't really know what you want and want to have your cake yet eat it too. So I must ask, what do you really want? Do you really want all people to be able to play together or do you not? Because if you do, then you have to live with the risk of certain things occurring.
"Someone once told me that time was a predator that stalked us all our lives. I rather believe that time is a companion who goes with us on the journey and reminds us to cherish every moment, because it will never come again." - Jean Luc Picard in Star Trek Generations
We had mentioned City of Heroes earlier and it got me to thinking. Remember the zone invasions like the Rikti Invasion, Halloween/Trick or Treat and Winter events? Enemy NPCs would not spawn at a specific level in any zone. I am not sure I remember the technical term for them, but they were all "level-less" everywhere throughout the city. So a level 50 going into Atlas Park and fighting the invading NPCs there would not instantly wipe everything out, and a level 5 character could go over to Peregrine Island and fight them as well without getting instantly annihilated. A mechanic along those lines could be adapted here for event content at least.
I think we already have it in game in a way.
Q's Winter Wonderland. The enemies there cannot be harmed by normal weapons, and it doesn't matter what level you are.
When I say it would divide the playerbase, I mean there would be a segment playing in normal and a segment playing in elite, and they could never mix. If the elite damage and content were more restricted (I think of it as a soft cap... theoretically you would be able to reach absurd damage levels, but diminishing returns would make it essentially impossible), then all types of players could play together (and PvP might actually work to some extent).
Why would they never be able to mix? I believe it safe to say no one has agreed segmenting and restricting the players into specific categories was a good idea.
We had mentioned City of Heroes earlier and it got me to thinking. Remember the zone invasions like the Rikti Invasion, Halloween/Trick or Treat and Winter events? Enemy NPCs would not spawn at a specific level in any zone. I am not sure I remember the technical term for them, but they were all "level-less" everywhere throughout the city. So a level 50 going into Atlas Park and fighting the invading NPCs there would not instantly wipe everything out, and a level 5 character could go over to Peregrine Island and fight them as well without getting instantly annihilated. A mechanic along those lines could be adapted here for event content at least.
Sounds like the system that was implemented in Fallout 76 a few years ago - instead of a defined level range of enemies in a given area, enemies generally level in keeping with your character (within certain limits - it is *not* safe to explore the Mire below about level 20, for instance). That goes away, of course, during Events - if you bring your level 15 into Scorched Earth, you'll get tons of XP if you survive, because the Scorchbeast Queen will be level 80 minimum, and you might get some random Level 100 Scorched or a Mirelurk Queen popping up as well. (There are suggested levels for Events for a reason.)
Not sure the STO codebase is compatible, though. As for "splitting the playerbase", this seems more self-selected to me - I'm just not seeing the point in tricking your ship out to crank out sufficient DPS to take on a Q, training your skills until you're faster than a Ferasan on crack, and then popping into Normal queues with the apparent purpose of merely humiliating all the peasants who haven't devoted their lives to achieving your royal magnificence.
I've been spending quite a bit of time now reading the thread. I don't know what has been fully discussed and what not but I feel like I would like to contribute my "take" to the discussion since I'm apparently a relatively rare creature (hard for me to say, birds of a feather fly together and I have quite a few really good players on my friends list that can pump numbers bigger than me).
I'm one of these "extreme" DPS players for starters. It's not so much that I'm chasing after a spot on the charts so much as I am attempting to push a concept to it's maximum potential. I love building ships in different ways. I have a total of 53 characters and over a decade of playing, spending money, playing events you name it. I'm a powerful, seasoned and experienced player and to be perfectly honest: my shipbuilding is at a point where there is no advanced content that is able to truly challenge me. With well organized groups even Elite content begins to look laughable with some group setups, but I digress.
Now I'm a bit of an "anomaly" player and I know it. I make custom made builds for specific ships where I decide the career of the captain as the final decision as opposed to being the first one. People rarely see me "levelling up" because generally I only begin playing the build in TFOs once I've assembled all the parts/traits and whatnot for it (with exception to rep gear of course). This is all fine and dandy for me, but over the years I've received a bit of pushback for "being too strong" in some cases.
Sometimes, actions by the high performers can be completely misinterpreted by the rest of the gang so to speak. Before they made the adjustment to breaking parties after TFOs completed, a common practice I had was to share my parsing results for the run with the rest of the team. I did this not to flex because the reality is, I'm going to be top DPS in 90%+ of any run I'm playing a random with. I'm not trying to lord these numbers over you; I was sharing them because there isn't a built in parser in the game that allows players to actually know where they stand in relation to the players around them.
Plus, there are players that genuinely don't know such tools exist and I've had many who would then ask me how I posted the numbers. I share knowledge and make it as available as I can, but some people would get angry and think that I was trying to show off how good I was... They don't get it. I don't care. I already know I'm going to outperform most of you; I'm generally racing against myself. I'm sharing the numbers to try and let the rest of you make decisions for your builds so that you know where you stand in relation to others as well as perhaps in relation to "God tier" if such a thing is to be aspired for. I don't have a horse in the race and don't really care what any of you do because odds are, I'm going to be able to carry the mission on my own so it makes little difference to me except how quickly we get it done overall.
But as they say, no good deed goes unpunished. I've been called all sorts of names for god knows what reason just because I happened to queue with an unpleaseant fellow some days. Luckily I'm a stubborn prick that doesn't particularly care what people think and I know in that aspect I probably contribute to the view of an "elitist DPSer". I don't back down and I tend to speak bluntly and try to keep things rooted in proveable data and facts. See I've watched, run the numbers, know builds inside and out that I can guestimate what a ship is doing based on setup alone. I've earned that ability over time, but I can't tell you how many arguments devolve into sillyness because I'm arguing with someone who only has a 20k record in ISA telling me they average figures that are multitudes well over that. If I were to make an analogy, the closest I can come up with would be something to the effect of I'm a woman being told by a guy what a delivery feels like and it starts getting laughable. You can't reason with people who have absolutely no idea what they're talking about, and therefore they will be stifled from improving as well.
I feel that the big solution would be to offer players more concrete information stemming straight from the game itself. While it's relatively easy to get a parsing program setup and going, it would be much better if the game itself provided some "official" numbers that players couldn't exactly shy away from at the end of a TFO. The most common error I've seen people make when they report "how much damage they do" is that they see a torpedo crit once for a big number and go "Oh yeah, if I can do X amount with that hit then my DPS is somewhere around Y (Y = X+Z?) and think they know what kind of numbers theyre doing.
I helped a guy short while ago and he was mulling over whether he was ready for advanced content because he was "Only doing 80k DPS". I was skeptical that he knew what he was actually talking about because I know that if I were parsing an ISA with an average of 80k that would be more than most of the people who run that mission. As I discovered after running with him, he wasn't actually AVERAGING 80k per second over the course of the run, but he was capable of PEAKING to 80k for a short period of time. There's a big difference between those two statements and it's hard for players in the current state of the game to actually understand what their "proveable number" is.
What I think would help is at the end of the match if the match itself provided a grand total of the damage done as well as the incoming threat and heal heal numbers for each player. This could actually help alleviate some elitism as you would also be showcasing the effects of a run by having a tank or a healer on a team (a concept somewhat foreign to STO, but speaking from experience these kinds of characters can make normally "challenging" runs a breeze). If you want to get fancy you can even include "How many objectives grabbed" or something to that effect for things that require placement/interaction. But the main thing is about showing everyone what the official numbers are.
It then also forces the lower end players to face certain realities. From my experience, in most of my TFO runs I'm usually doing approximately 50% of all damage throughout the run. If I have a player of my calibre on the team, we usually each share around 33% of the damage and the rest gets divvied up amongst the other 3. In most scenarios where I'm top dog though, the breakdown USUALLY looks to me damage-wise that there are two to three players that do approximately 15-20% each and one or two that ends up being negligible.
Those negligible players can see at the end of the run that while yes, one player may have been completely "owning" the run, it's not like the other players didn't contribute/vastly outperform the "slow pokes". It's easy for the slow pokes to spot the high performer and blame it all on him, but while that player may indeed be doing the majority of the run the other players on the team are still contributing to a far greater degree but the inept player is left completely unaware and thinks the problem is entirely with player A instead of looking in the mirror.
I feel as though another solution to help ease the problem might be to also institute a "high end" threshold for AFK Penalty detection. There are scenarios where some players can dominate a map with a custom build that their character is in no way shape or form configured to emulate. Anyone who ran with the FedEx Priority Express this latest Breach event will know this to be true. So what I think is that clearly there is some type of feature where the game is keeping track of the numbers up until end of run to try and determine who the "AFK Penalty" people are. If they are already logging/doing this in order to determine participation, merely go a simple step further and share the results of the data with the players.
And then, if you have a scenario where the run is completed far in advance of the normal time frame with a single player doing a majority of the damage, you disable the AFK Penalty for all other players. This would alleviate some animosity as I've HEARD (Although admittedly, never from the horses mouth) that players get AFK penalties from there being an extreme DPSer in the run. I couched this statement because I've never gotten a message saying "TRIBBLE you, I now have an AFK penalty because of you", it's usually some mid-level player getting very angry on the behalf of others. You see, THEY were good enough not to get an AFK penalty but those poor other players are getting them apparently.
I don't know what the truth is. I'm actually going to be starting a fresh toon on a new account to try and take myself off the "Ivory Tower" so to speak for a little bit and see what I can do with a genuinely fresh captain. We'll see how it goes and what I discover. I'm at a point where I have so many traits, recruitment events, starship unlocks and whatnot on my main account that I don't really have a way of relating to normal players anymore. I have so much stuff already unlocked for a brand new character that early game content has become a joke. I hope to get a better insight into the "average player experience" soon, but in the meantime it is my hope that my perspective from the "ivory tower" is of some use to the discussion.
Not sure the STO codebase is compatible, though. As for "splitting the playerbase", this seems more self-selected to me - I'm just not seeing the point in tricking your ship out to crank out sufficient DPS to take on a Q, training your skills until you're faster than a Ferasan on crack, and then popping into Normal queues with the apparent purpose of merely humiliating all the peasants who haven't devoted their lives to achieving your royal magnificence.
For some it's fun to squeeze every last one and zero from a ship. Also for the high DPS people that's NEVER been the point of kitting a ship out to the Nth degree. There's a huge difference in someone choosing to play on a lower difficulty, and someone choosing to do so for the purposes of trolling. If someone is deliberately trying to troll and AFK people, then get some evidence of it and wire it over to the GMs.
It really comes down to whether people believe all content should be made with all people in mind or not.
If people believe all content should be made with all people in mind, then everyone has to be able to walk through the door, even if they overgear that content severely. All Cryptic can do is say "if you meet condition X you're good for this content."
If you believe not all content has to be made with all people in mind but want everyone to be able to get through the door whether they pass or fail, then again Cryptic establishes a minimum floor for each difficulty. That floor being that folks meet condition X for normal, condition X and Y for advanced, and then conditions X Y and Z for elite. They can step foot into any difficulty whether they pass or fail. However if they want to succeed they will know what's expected of them and know what they must do in order to get there.
"Someone once told me that time was a predator that stalked us all our lives. I rather believe that time is a companion who goes with us on the journey and reminds us to cherish every moment, because it will never come again." - Jean Luc Picard in Star Trek Generations
Not sure the STO codebase is compatible, though. As for "splitting the playerbase", this seems more self-selected to me - I'm just not seeing the point in tricking your ship out to crank out sufficient DPS to take on a Q, training your skills until you're faster than a Ferasan on crack, and then popping into Normal queues with the apparent purpose of merely humiliating all the peasants who haven't devoted their lives to achieving your royal magnificence.
For some it's fun to squeeze every last one and zero from a ship. Also for the high DPS people that's NEVER been the point of kitting a ship out to the Nth degree. There's a huge difference in someone choosing to play on a lower difficulty, and someone choosing to do so for the purposes of trolling. If someone is deliberately trying to troll and AFK people, then get some evidence of it and wire it over to the GMs.
It really comes down to whether people believe all content should be made with all people in mind or not.
If people believe all content should be made with all people in mind, then everyone has to be able to walk through the door, even if they overgear that content severely. All Cryptic can do is say "if you meet condition X you're good for this content."
If you believe not all content has to be made with all people in mind but want everyone to be able to get through the door whether they pass or fail, then again Cryptic establishes a minimum floor for each difficulty. That floor being that folks meet condition X for normal, condition X and Y for advanced, and then conditions X Y and Z for elite. They can step foot into any difficulty whether they pass or fail. However if they want to succeed they will know what's expected of them and know what they must do in order to get there.
and who decides the threshold of trolling? I gave an example and you promptly defended the "l33t" that in my opinion, was trolling me. from what I am gathering from you, is I can go through the undine battlezone, vape everything in sight in seconds, TRIBBLE off every player on the map, and as long as I don't say anything in chat, I'm good to go, whereas 15 other people are thinking what a F*****g A*****e.
and who decides the threshold of trolling? I gave an example and you promptly defended the "l33t" that in my opinion, was trolling me. from what I am gathering from you, is I can go through the undine battlezone, vape everything in sight in seconds, TRIBBLE off every player on the map, and as long as I don't say anything in chat, I'm good to go, whereas 15 other people are thinking what a F*****g A*****e.
So first to answer the question in bold, the person making that decision would be Cryptic. As to my having defended someone you believe was trolling you, what post are we talking about? Are you talking something I said in here or elsewhere? To the second portion in bold, that is not now nor has that ever been what I said. What I said was that if you're going to accuse someone of trolling, you need evidence to prove it. Someone existing on the same map as you and having higher DPS doesn't constitute trolling.
If high DPSer John Doe who does 1m DPS gets grouped with little Timmy who only does 10k DPS, and John does everything by the book as the TFO demands, but little Timmy eats an AFK penalty, that's on little Timmy. John did no wrong by simply existing on the same map. Now if John was going around and using abilities to somehow prevent Timmy from ever being able to fire his weapons or was actively trying to prevent Timmy from being able to play, THAT would be trolling. If you wanted to report John for trolling Timmy you would need to prove that John was actively trolling Timmy. Otherwise if they both happened to get paired to the same group, neither of them did anything wrong and it was just bad luck of the draw for Timmy.
To conclude, if you believe someone to be trolling, get the evidence and present it to CS. Otherwise as the game is setup right now, the game grants people the ability to step foot into any TFO they wish on any difficulty whether they pass or fail. high DPS folks can enter normal mode content, and low DPS people can enter elite content. People playing outside of their usual difficulty on its own does not constitute trolling.
"Someone once told me that time was a predator that stalked us all our lives. I rather believe that time is a companion who goes with us on the journey and reminds us to cherish every moment, because it will never come again." - Jean Luc Picard in Star Trek Generations
and who decides the threshold of trolling? I gave an example and you promptly defended the "l33t" that in my opinion, was trolling me. from what I am gathering from you, is I can go through the undine battlezone, vape everything in sight in seconds, TRIBBLE off every player on the map, and as long as I don't say anything in chat, I'm good to go, whereas 15 other people are thinking what a F*****g A*****e.
A high DPS player being in a battlezone may be working on a daily for endeavors. Unless they were deliberately telling you they were following you around just to troll you, there is not much you can do. It is a public space and you cannot fault them for being there. As for who decides what is or is not trolling, ultimately that is up to Cryptic GMs to decide.
Yeah, Battle Zones are, per definition, a free-for-all. If a high DPS player is in the zone with you, then, also per definition, they cannot be said to be trolling you.
Also, Battle Zones are huge. If a person feels the weight of said high DPS player, then just go work on another point in the map, and try and capture that: even a high DPS player cannot be at all places at the same time.
And, last but not least, if the presence of a high DPS player really bothers you, just switch instances. Solved.
I would like to suggest random Elite TFOs. I miss having to pay attention to what I have to do. The "optionals" that used to be a requirement in advanced so that you could fail in an advanced was something I actually liked. Did I get mad when people TRIBBLE up and waste people's time? Yes. But God is it better than feeling like I'm just going through the motions to get a participation trophy.
It's not just a matter of going elsewhere. What I'm saying, what I've said all along, is that the game shouldn't allow ANYONE to get their dps to levels that trivialize the game. The balance is broken, and it causes other problems, as we've seen in this thread.
There is no practical way to really fix that as a large part of DPS doesn't come from gear or traits but piloting and player skill. Its certainty possible to tweak balance and make improvements its just I don't think you can 100% fix the problem that way.
Even if the devs did the horrible thing of forcing all players into the same single ship with the same loadout, same preconfigured skills, traits, equipment, there would still be a massive DPS difference between players. For lack of a better word "balance" is something that is impossible to truly balance.
It's not just a matter of going elsewhere. What I'm saying, what I've said all along, is that the game shouldn't allow ANYONE to get their dps to levels that trivialize the game. The balance is broken, and it causes other problems, as we've seen in this thread.
There is no practical way to really fix that as a large part of DPS doesn't come from gear or traits but piloting and player skill. Its certainty possible to tweak balance and make improvements its just I don't think you can 100% fix the problem that way.
True. And I'm living proof of that.
Even if the devs did the horrible thing of forcing all players into the same single ship with the same loadout, same preconfigured skills, traits, equipment, there would still be a massive DPS difference between players. For lack of a better word "balance" is something that is impossible to truly balance.
I agree with most; except that I return to my first post on this thread, in which I laid out the extremely detrimental effects of spacebarring, interrupting weapon cycles (whereas the game should handle/activate in an asynchroneous matter, like any system created past 1980). That would mitigate the negative effects of not being able to time your key-presses to a T. Beyond that, piloting skill differences will naturally continue to exist -- but appear less extreme.
It's not just a matter of going elsewhere. What I'm saying, what I've said all along, is that the game shouldn't allow ANYONE to get their dps to levels that trivialize the game. The balance is broken, and it causes other problems, as we've seen in this thread.
it always happens, though. they come upwith Hey let's make the Z console. which is cool, by itself doesn't break anything, but that console, in combination with the D console or the X boff power synergize and starts to break all kinds of stuff.
Also if you're concerned about more difficult foes, why are you going into places where you know those foes exist?
I don't think was addressed after you asked it, but sometimes the current event or one of the endeavors might direct a player to certain content that they don't like. Or maybe they want to challenge themselves and try to get better.
Also if you're concerned about more difficult foes, why are you going into places where you know those foes exist?
I don't think was addressed after you asked it, but sometimes the current event or one of the endeavors might direct a player to certain content that they don't like. Or maybe they want to challenge themselves and try to get better.
Well, the so-called 'hard' patrol options weren't hard at all. Which was slightly disappointing.
The Hard option for those patrols isn't about difficulty, it's about annoyance...which is just another showing of how little Cryptic knows about their own game, since they have Breen in the normal pool when they are one of the single most IRRITATING enemy groups in the game.
A normie goes "Oh, what's this?"
An otaku goes "UwU, what's this?"
A furry goes "OwO, what's this?"
A werewolf goes "Awoo, what's this?"
"It's nothing personal, I just don't feel like I've gotten to know a person until I've sniffed their crotch." "We said 'no' to Mr. Curiosity. We're not home. Curiosity is not welcome, it is not to be invited in. Curiosity...is bad. It gets you in trouble, it gets you killed, and more importantly...it makes you poor!"
Passion and Serenity are one.
I gain power by understanding both.
In the chaos of their battle, I bring order.
I am a shadow, darkness born from light.
The Force is united within me.
Also if you're concerned about more difficult foes, why are you going into places where you know those foes exist?
I don't think was addressed after you asked it, but sometimes the current event or one of the endeavors might direct a player to certain content that they don't like. Or maybe they want to challenge themselves and try to get better.
Well, the so-called 'hard' patrol options weren't hard at all. Which was slightly disappointing.
Its up to you. Play them on Elite and they become alot harder.
C-Store Inc. is still looking for active members on the fed side. If you don't have a fleet feel free to contact me in game @stegi.
What if... instead of making enemies harder at higher difficulty levels, they instead reduced the capabilities of OUR ships? That is, they make the game at one general difficulty level. Those that want to play on "Advanced" difficulty would have their capabilities reduced by, say, 30%. Then, they would find the "Normal" difficulty of the game in general more difficult, and they could play ANY content at Advanced difficulty. "Elite" difficulty would reduce the capabilities of the ship by, say, 70%. Again, these players could participate in the same content as everyone else with essentially higher difficulty.
Would a system like this resolve the issues?
I'm just spitballing, I've not really thought it all the way through, but I'm not seeing any immediate concerns...
Now you're just punishing people for daring to play above normal and incentivizing people to play on normal only. This system is the equivalent of putting in less effort than the so called evil DPSers people complain about, but expecting equal results to their builds. Such as system like this would cause a mass exodus as simply nerfing people is an automatic non-starter.
If we're going to look at a scaling system, then SWTOR already solved this problem with their scaling system they introduced that scales people up/down based on the content. If a level 50 is going into veteran content (veteran is the equivalent to advanced content) then they would be scaled up to level 80. Their abilities would still be the same as being level 50, but their stats would be equal to the minimum stats an 80 would have. If on the opposite side of the coin I as a level 80 go back to one of the lower level planets, I'm scaled down to the highest level that planet is intended for. Example being, if I go back to a planet with level 25 max, then I am scaled down to highest stats a level 25 can have, but with the abilities of an 80. Purely by stats there are going to be some bits I can faceroll and one shot because that's unavoidable when you have varying degrees of damage and variances in possible damage output. Then there will be those that I can't one shot.
Otherwise what level of participation do people want to have? Because as pointed out before, people are getting rewards by their own admission, so they are in fact getting to participate. They just don't like how much they got to participate. Which fair enough if they don't, they're entitled to like/dislike what they like/dislike. At the same time if they don't feel like they were able to participate enough, then I have to ask first, what are they doing on their end to ensure maximum potential to participate? If a person says they want to be able to participate more, yet are unwilling to change anything on their end in the slightest, why should I or anyone else have to change something on my end?
"Someone once told me that time was a predator that stalked us all our lives. I rather believe that time is a companion who goes with us on the journey and reminds us to cherish every moment, because it will never come again." - Jean Luc Picard in Star Trek Generations
Otherwise what level of participation do people want to have? Because as pointed out before, people are getting rewards by their own admission, so they are in fact getting to participate. They just don't like how much they got to participate. Which fair enough if they don't, they're entitled to like/dislike what they like/dislike. At the same time if they don't feel like they were able to participate enough, then I have to ask first, what are they doing on their end to ensure maximum potential to participate? If a person says they want to be able to participate more, yet are unwilling to change anything on their end in the slightest, why should I or anyone else have to change something on my end?
Pretty much this. The 'issue' is entirely on your end. The only one that can resolve it is you. The rest of us are fine.
What if... instead of making enemies harder at higher difficulty levels, they instead reduced the capabilities of OUR ships? That is, they make the game at one general difficulty level. Those that want to play on "Advanced" difficulty would have their capabilities reduced by, say, 30%. Then, they would find the "Normal" difficulty of the game in general more difficult, and they could play ANY content at Advanced difficulty. "Elite" difficulty would reduce the capabilities of the ship by, say, 70%. Again, these players could participate in the same content as everyone else with essentially higher difficulty.
Would a system like this resolve the issues?
The whole purpose of playing at a higher level than you were used to, is to have it denote your own progress. When I started playing on Advanced (like 5 years ago), I did so, because I got a wee bit better. Kinda silly to punish ppl for that. If peeps don't want to improve, or are unable to -- for whatever reason -- then they should continue to play at their level, no biggie. But last thing we should do, IMHO, is disincentivize players to get better. Not force them to 'git good' either, I haste to say, but simply respect players at their own level, which includes not punishing them for being a stronger player than I am. Respecting where ppl are, up or down from you, is important.
What the others are saying. I can get behind the system DBJK mentioned, and there are places in STO that do that. Nimbus scales you down to like lvl 50 and I think so does the Borg BZ. If we have this for lower-higher tier content then it might level the playing field a little more then simply nerfing big players.
Now a LTS and loving it.
Just because you spend money on this game, it does not entitle you to be a jerk if things don't go your way.
I have come to the conclusion that I have a memory like Etch-A-Sketch. I shake my head and forget everything.
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rattler2Member, Star Trek Online ModeratorPosts: 58,586Community Moderator
What the others are saying. I can get behind the system DBJK mentioned, and there are places in STO that do that. Nimbus scales you down to like lvl 50 and I think so does the Borg BZ. If we have this for lower-higher tier content then it might level the playing field a little more then simply nerfing big players.
The game also scales you down if your team leader is a lower level and you match their level. The problem is you still have full access to all your abilities so you're still OP even when scaled down. I could team up with a friend whose level 37 as a lv 65, match their level... and my ship still has all consoles and weapons and everything. While the stats are adjusted, I still have EVERYTHING.
Comments
People can already play together now with the system we currently have regardless of the level of power they're at. However this entire thread has been about certain people not liking that people over a certain DPS threshold can come into certain bits of content and ruin it for other people as they've outright said or hinted at. So if you want all types of players to be able to do content together then this already exists and there is no issue. Yet you've made the statement before you think there is too much DPS. So I have to question, if you want all people to be able to play together, then how can you justify excluding those with higher DPS from the equation? Logically when you say all people that must include them as well. If not then you aren't really wanting all people to be able to play together, only certain groups which divides the playerbase.
In arguing for a soft cap or any kind of DPS cap, you're placing an artificial ceiling that removes any motivation for people to improve their ships and builds. You must then decide how much DPS you think should be the max. Is it 1m DPS, is it 500k, 250k, or what number are we talking? Let's say you capped DPS at 200k, you're still going to have to deal with those 200k people playing on advanced and normal from time to time. You're not eliminating what you say is a problem, you're just punishing people for investing in their builds.
I also tend to agree with Val in his observations of your issues with the Tzenkethi. Enemies getting stronger as players get stronger has been the standard of MMOs since their existence. Yet for me personally it sounds like in part that you're arguing an oxymoronic and contradictory position.
On one hand you say you want all types of people to be able to play together, yet are arguing for a DPS cap and restrictions on so called elite damage. You say you don't want to divide the playerbase yet have argued before that so called high DPS players are ruining things for others and are arguing for changes. I also agree with Val on one other thing, people playing normal are going to play normal no matter what, and people playing elite will keep playing elite. People will keep playing their chosen level no matter what. That's not going to suddenly change. Also if a normal mode player wants to step into elite and succeed, then they need to put in the work to get there. Nothing is free nor should it be. I have to seriously ask at this point, if you want all people to be able to play together as you've hinted at, how can you argue for some kind of DPS cap or similar? You say you want people to play together, which they can do now, yet argue for restrictions. From where I'm sitting it sounds like you don't really know what you want and want to have your cake yet eat it too. So I must ask, what do you really want? Do you really want all people to be able to play together or do you not? Because if you do, then you have to live with the risk of certain things occurring.
Star Trek Online volunteer Community Moderator
I think we already have it in game in a way.
Q's Winter Wonderland. The enemies there cannot be harmed by normal weapons, and it doesn't matter what level you are.
Not sure the STO codebase is compatible, though. As for "splitting the playerbase", this seems more self-selected to me - I'm just not seeing the point in tricking your ship out to crank out sufficient DPS to take on a Q, training your skills until you're faster than a Ferasan on crack, and then popping into Normal queues with the apparent purpose of merely humiliating all the peasants who haven't devoted their lives to achieving your royal magnificence.
I'm one of these "extreme" DPS players for starters. It's not so much that I'm chasing after a spot on the charts so much as I am attempting to push a concept to it's maximum potential. I love building ships in different ways. I have a total of 53 characters and over a decade of playing, spending money, playing events you name it. I'm a powerful, seasoned and experienced player and to be perfectly honest: my shipbuilding is at a point where there is no advanced content that is able to truly challenge me. With well organized groups even Elite content begins to look laughable with some group setups, but I digress.
Now I'm a bit of an "anomaly" player and I know it. I make custom made builds for specific ships where I decide the career of the captain as the final decision as opposed to being the first one. People rarely see me "levelling up" because generally I only begin playing the build in TFOs once I've assembled all the parts/traits and whatnot for it (with exception to rep gear of course). This is all fine and dandy for me, but over the years I've received a bit of pushback for "being too strong" in some cases.
Sometimes, actions by the high performers can be completely misinterpreted by the rest of the gang so to speak. Before they made the adjustment to breaking parties after TFOs completed, a common practice I had was to share my parsing results for the run with the rest of the team. I did this not to flex because the reality is, I'm going to be top DPS in 90%+ of any run I'm playing a random with. I'm not trying to lord these numbers over you; I was sharing them because there isn't a built in parser in the game that allows players to actually know where they stand in relation to the players around them.
Plus, there are players that genuinely don't know such tools exist and I've had many who would then ask me how I posted the numbers. I share knowledge and make it as available as I can, but some people would get angry and think that I was trying to show off how good I was... They don't get it. I don't care. I already know I'm going to outperform most of you; I'm generally racing against myself. I'm sharing the numbers to try and let the rest of you make decisions for your builds so that you know where you stand in relation to others as well as perhaps in relation to "God tier" if such a thing is to be aspired for. I don't have a horse in the race and don't really care what any of you do because odds are, I'm going to be able to carry the mission on my own so it makes little difference to me except how quickly we get it done overall.
But as they say, no good deed goes unpunished. I've been called all sorts of names for god knows what reason just because I happened to queue with an unpleaseant fellow some days. Luckily I'm a stubborn prick that doesn't particularly care what people think and I know in that aspect I probably contribute to the view of an "elitist DPSer". I don't back down and I tend to speak bluntly and try to keep things rooted in proveable data and facts. See I've watched, run the numbers, know builds inside and out that I can guestimate what a ship is doing based on setup alone. I've earned that ability over time, but I can't tell you how many arguments devolve into sillyness because I'm arguing with someone who only has a 20k record in ISA telling me they average figures that are multitudes well over that. If I were to make an analogy, the closest I can come up with would be something to the effect of I'm a woman being told by a guy what a delivery feels like and it starts getting laughable. You can't reason with people who have absolutely no idea what they're talking about, and therefore they will be stifled from improving as well.
I feel that the big solution would be to offer players more concrete information stemming straight from the game itself. While it's relatively easy to get a parsing program setup and going, it would be much better if the game itself provided some "official" numbers that players couldn't exactly shy away from at the end of a TFO. The most common error I've seen people make when they report "how much damage they do" is that they see a torpedo crit once for a big number and go "Oh yeah, if I can do X amount with that hit then my DPS is somewhere around Y (Y = X+Z?) and think they know what kind of numbers theyre doing.
I helped a guy short while ago and he was mulling over whether he was ready for advanced content because he was "Only doing 80k DPS". I was skeptical that he knew what he was actually talking about because I know that if I were parsing an ISA with an average of 80k that would be more than most of the people who run that mission. As I discovered after running with him, he wasn't actually AVERAGING 80k per second over the course of the run, but he was capable of PEAKING to 80k for a short period of time. There's a big difference between those two statements and it's hard for players in the current state of the game to actually understand what their "proveable number" is.
What I think would help is at the end of the match if the match itself provided a grand total of the damage done as well as the incoming threat and heal heal numbers for each player. This could actually help alleviate some elitism as you would also be showcasing the effects of a run by having a tank or a healer on a team (a concept somewhat foreign to STO, but speaking from experience these kinds of characters can make normally "challenging" runs a breeze). If you want to get fancy you can even include "How many objectives grabbed" or something to that effect for things that require placement/interaction. But the main thing is about showing everyone what the official numbers are.
It then also forces the lower end players to face certain realities. From my experience, in most of my TFO runs I'm usually doing approximately 50% of all damage throughout the run. If I have a player of my calibre on the team, we usually each share around 33% of the damage and the rest gets divvied up amongst the other 3. In most scenarios where I'm top dog though, the breakdown USUALLY looks to me damage-wise that there are two to three players that do approximately 15-20% each and one or two that ends up being negligible.
Those negligible players can see at the end of the run that while yes, one player may have been completely "owning" the run, it's not like the other players didn't contribute/vastly outperform the "slow pokes". It's easy for the slow pokes to spot the high performer and blame it all on him, but while that player may indeed be doing the majority of the run the other players on the team are still contributing to a far greater degree but the inept player is left completely unaware and thinks the problem is entirely with player A instead of looking in the mirror.
I feel as though another solution to help ease the problem might be to also institute a "high end" threshold for AFK Penalty detection. There are scenarios where some players can dominate a map with a custom build that their character is in no way shape or form configured to emulate. Anyone who ran with the FedEx Priority Express this latest Breach event will know this to be true. So what I think is that clearly there is some type of feature where the game is keeping track of the numbers up until end of run to try and determine who the "AFK Penalty" people are. If they are already logging/doing this in order to determine participation, merely go a simple step further and share the results of the data with the players.
And then, if you have a scenario where the run is completed far in advance of the normal time frame with a single player doing a majority of the damage, you disable the AFK Penalty for all other players. This would alleviate some animosity as I've HEARD (Although admittedly, never from the horses mouth) that players get AFK penalties from there being an extreme DPSer in the run. I couched this statement because I've never gotten a message saying "TRIBBLE you, I now have an AFK penalty because of you", it's usually some mid-level player getting very angry on the behalf of others. You see, THEY were good enough not to get an AFK penalty but those poor other players are getting them apparently.
I don't know what the truth is. I'm actually going to be starting a fresh toon on a new account to try and take myself off the "Ivory Tower" so to speak for a little bit and see what I can do with a genuinely fresh captain. We'll see how it goes and what I discover. I'm at a point where I have so many traits, recruitment events, starship unlocks and whatnot on my main account that I don't really have a way of relating to normal players anymore. I have so much stuff already unlocked for a brand new character that early game content has become a joke. I hope to get a better insight into the "average player experience" soon, but in the meantime it is my hope that my perspective from the "ivory tower" is of some use to the discussion.
For some it's fun to squeeze every last one and zero from a ship. Also for the high DPS people that's NEVER been the point of kitting a ship out to the Nth degree. There's a huge difference in someone choosing to play on a lower difficulty, and someone choosing to do so for the purposes of trolling. If someone is deliberately trying to troll and AFK people, then get some evidence of it and wire it over to the GMs.
It really comes down to whether people believe all content should be made with all people in mind or not.
If people believe all content should be made with all people in mind, then everyone has to be able to walk through the door, even if they overgear that content severely. All Cryptic can do is say "if you meet condition X you're good for this content."
If you believe not all content has to be made with all people in mind but want everyone to be able to get through the door whether they pass or fail, then again Cryptic establishes a minimum floor for each difficulty. That floor being that folks meet condition X for normal, condition X and Y for advanced, and then conditions X Y and Z for elite. They can step foot into any difficulty whether they pass or fail. However if they want to succeed they will know what's expected of them and know what they must do in order to get there.
Star Trek Online volunteer Community Moderator
and who decides the threshold of trolling? I gave an example and you promptly defended the "l33t" that in my opinion, was trolling me. from what I am gathering from you, is I can go through the undine battlezone, vape everything in sight in seconds, TRIBBLE off every player on the map, and as long as I don't say anything in chat, I'm good to go, whereas 15 other people are thinking what a F*****g A*****e.
If high DPSer John Doe who does 1m DPS gets grouped with little Timmy who only does 10k DPS, and John does everything by the book as the TFO demands, but little Timmy eats an AFK penalty, that's on little Timmy. John did no wrong by simply existing on the same map. Now if John was going around and using abilities to somehow prevent Timmy from ever being able to fire his weapons or was actively trying to prevent Timmy from being able to play, THAT would be trolling. If you wanted to report John for trolling Timmy you would need to prove that John was actively trolling Timmy. Otherwise if they both happened to get paired to the same group, neither of them did anything wrong and it was just bad luck of the draw for Timmy.
To conclude, if you believe someone to be trolling, get the evidence and present it to CS. Otherwise as the game is setup right now, the game grants people the ability to step foot into any TFO they wish on any difficulty whether they pass or fail. high DPS folks can enter normal mode content, and low DPS people can enter elite content. People playing outside of their usual difficulty on its own does not constitute trolling.
Star Trek Online volunteer Community Moderator
Yeah, Battle Zones are, per definition, a free-for-all. If a high DPS player is in the zone with you, then, also per definition, they cannot be said to be trolling you.
Also, Battle Zones are huge. If a person feels the weight of said high DPS player, then just go work on another point in the map, and try and capture that: even a high DPS player cannot be at all places at the same time.
And, last but not least, if the presence of a high DPS player really bothers you, just switch instances. Solved.
Even if the devs did the horrible thing of forcing all players into the same single ship with the same loadout, same preconfigured skills, traits, equipment, there would still be a massive DPS difference between players. For lack of a better word "balance" is something that is impossible to truly balance.
True. And I'm living proof of that.
I agree with most; except that I return to my first post on this thread, in which I laid out the extremely detrimental effects of spacebarring, interrupting weapon cycles (whereas the game should handle/activate in an asynchroneous matter, like any system created past 1980). That would mitigate the negative effects of not being able to time your key-presses to a T. Beyond that, piloting skill differences will naturally continue to exist -- but appear less extreme.
it always happens, though. they come upwith Hey let's make the Z console. which is cool, by itself doesn't break anything, but that console, in combination with the D console or the X boff power synergize and starts to break all kinds of stuff.
I don't think was addressed after you asked it, but sometimes the current event or one of the endeavors might direct a player to certain content that they don't like. Or maybe they want to challenge themselves and try to get better.
Well, the so-called 'hard' patrol options weren't hard at all. Which was slightly disappointing.
#LegalizeAwoo
A normie goes "Oh, what's this?"
An otaku goes "UwU, what's this?"
A furry goes "OwO, what's this?"
A werewolf goes "Awoo, what's this?"
"It's nothing personal, I just don't feel like I've gotten to know a person until I've sniffed their crotch."
"We said 'no' to Mr. Curiosity. We're not home. Curiosity is not welcome, it is not to be invited in. Curiosity...is bad. It gets you in trouble, it gets you killed, and more importantly...it makes you poor!"
Its up to you. Play them on Elite and they become alot harder.
Now you're just punishing people for daring to play above normal and incentivizing people to play on normal only. This system is the equivalent of putting in less effort than the so called evil DPSers people complain about, but expecting equal results to their builds. Such as system like this would cause a mass exodus as simply nerfing people is an automatic non-starter.
If we're going to look at a scaling system, then SWTOR already solved this problem with their scaling system they introduced that scales people up/down based on the content. If a level 50 is going into veteran content (veteran is the equivalent to advanced content) then they would be scaled up to level 80. Their abilities would still be the same as being level 50, but their stats would be equal to the minimum stats an 80 would have. If on the opposite side of the coin I as a level 80 go back to one of the lower level planets, I'm scaled down to the highest level that planet is intended for. Example being, if I go back to a planet with level 25 max, then I am scaled down to highest stats a level 25 can have, but with the abilities of an 80. Purely by stats there are going to be some bits I can faceroll and one shot because that's unavoidable when you have varying degrees of damage and variances in possible damage output. Then there will be those that I can't one shot.
Otherwise what level of participation do people want to have? Because as pointed out before, people are getting rewards by their own admission, so they are in fact getting to participate. They just don't like how much they got to participate. Which fair enough if they don't, they're entitled to like/dislike what they like/dislike. At the same time if they don't feel like they were able to participate enough, then I have to ask first, what are they doing on their end to ensure maximum potential to participate? If a person says they want to be able to participate more, yet are unwilling to change anything on their end in the slightest, why should I or anyone else have to change something on my end?
Star Trek Online volunteer Community Moderator
No, because there is no issue to resolve.
Pretty much this. The 'issue' is entirely on your end. The only one that can resolve it is you. The rest of us are fine.
The whole purpose of playing at a higher level than you were used to, is to have it denote your own progress. When I started playing on Advanced (like 5 years ago), I did so, because I got a wee bit better. Kinda silly to punish ppl for that.
The game also scales you down if your team leader is a lower level and you match their level. The problem is you still have full access to all your abilities so you're still OP even when scaled down. I could team up with a friend whose level 37 as a lv 65, match their level... and my ship still has all consoles and weapons and everything. While the stats are adjusted, I still have EVERYTHING.